{"id":3494,"date":"2013-02-26T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/mapping-warm-water-sloughs-on-the-south-platte\/"},"modified":"2021-06-09T14:19:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T14:19:34","slug":"mapping-warm-water-sloughs-on-the-south-platte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/2013\/02\/26\/mapping-warm-water-sloughs-on-the-south-platte\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapping warm water sloughs on the South Platte"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jeremy Sueltenfuss, CNHP Wetland Ecologist<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nFor many years, our partners in the wildlife community have
\ntalked at length about the importance of warm water sloughs for overwintering
\nColorado wildlife.  As they are
\ncontinually recharged by emerging groundwater, which is not subjected to the
\nfreezing temperatures at the surface, these stream-like features are some of
\nthe only water bodies across the landscape that remain open throughout the
\nwinter, providing wildlife much needed access to water during the cold winter
\nmonths.  Because of their importance, we
\nset out to map all the sloughs we could find along the South Platte River.  While aerial imagery can be quite good at
\nmapping water features, nothing beats a low altitude flight to get a sense of
\nthe landscape!<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Though familiar with the more common method of flying (being inside the plane that is), Jacqui thought she would give this method a shot.  It did not last long.  An immense thanks to Colorado Parks and Wildlife for supplying us with their plane and the CPW pilot, Brian, for a very safe and rewarding experience.  <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nTaking off in a small four seat prop plane from the Fort
\nCollins \u2013 Loveland airport (Fort Love as our pilot referred to it), Jacqui, a
\nfearless CNHP work-study student and I put our faith in our pilot, Brian.  Brian has been flying for Colorado Parksand Wildlife<\/a> (CPW) for years, and his knowledge of both the landscape and local
\nwildlife was tremendously beneficial. 
\nBeyond his ability to spot herds of deer, gaggles of geese, and flocks
\nof turkey from amazing distances, his stories from his work for CPW were
\nbreathtaking.  While I love hiking to
\nremote mountain lakes, I have never thought about what it takes to stock them
\nwith fish.  Brian\u2019s stories of
\nmaneuvering his small plane through tight mountain corridors, dropping his air
\nspeed to levels I personally never wish to feel while in flight, and releasing
\nhundreds of small fish at precisely the right moment for them to land in the
\nlake, all while watching the rock face in front of you fill your vision, was
\nenough to make me sweat.  Luckily for us,
\nthe only aerial acrobatics we performed were slow broad circles to get a closer
\nlook at a slough, or a better view of some wildlife. <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Continually being recharged by groundwater, warm water sloughs remain slightly warmer than other surface waters and remain open throughout the winter.  This provides much needed access to water for wildlife in the area.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nThough \u201cColorful Colorado\u201d is quite brown in the winter,
\nflying at 150 feet over the South Platte was fascinating and beautiful.  As promised, sloughs seemed to be the only
\nopen water around, and the leafless trees afforded views of the many flocks of
\nwaterbirds, small herds of deer bounding away, and even a few scenes of male
\nturkeys doing their best to impress a nearby female.  The seven bald eagles we saw perched in trees
\nor soaring above the river provided a wonderful example of an Endangered
\nSpecies Act success story and served as tribute to the tremendous effort of conservation
\ngroups over the past 50 years.  It was
\nenough to almost forget what we were after! 
\nArmed with maps of sloughs we had completed before the flight using
\nimagery from the summer, we constantly compared what was in our maps to what we
\nwere seeing on the ground.  Both Jacqui
\nand Brian seemed to do quite well looking down at maps and back out at the
\nlandscape for 4 straight hours.  While I
\ndid my best to appear absolutely normal, my stomach was reenacting what it must
\nfeel like to stock those high mountain lakes! 
\nQueasiness aside, we accomplished our goal and came away with a highly
\naccurate map of the warm water sloughs along the South Platte River between
\nGreeley and the state line.  Though many
\nother riparian landscapes across the state contain warm water sloughs that may
\none day be mapped, I have high hopes this data can be used for the restoration
\nand the conservation of lands containing these important features.     <\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jeremy Sueltenfuss, CNHP Wetland Ecologist For many years, our partners in the wildlife community have talked at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-collaborations","category-ecology","category-wetlands","entry","override"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnhp.colostate.edu\/cnhpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}